A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal ed. by Hollingsworth, Mary, Miles Pattenden, and Arnold Witte (review)

Obviously, recent Anglophone publishers successfully continue to produce expensive collective volumes on many different subjects. Most outstanding is Brill’s extensive series of Companions which includes the present impressive volume on early modern cardinals. The several thousand cardinals of the Roman church have always fascinated historians because of their many different activities and social roles. This big handbook presents some thirty different important aspects of the cardinals’ typology. But does it integrate these details successfully?

(1) The first of the eight parts of the book concerns the concept and functions of the cardinal. It starts with a chapter on medieval legal history. In the early modern period the College of Cardinals lost much of its collective power, but often this loss was compensated by an increase of power of individual cardinals. The popes simply needed cooperators. Next, after the rites of promotion and the activities in conclave the formal and informal roles of the hybrid quasi-institution of the cardinal-nephew are analyzed. (2) The significance of cardinals’ ecclesiastic and ecclesiologic activities in the Church can certainly not be covered exhaustively. The handbook selects chapters on ecumenical councils and theology, on the Inquisition and the Penitentiary, and on the protectorate of religious institutions. (3) In continuation, one reads on the secular power which the cardinals wielded as legates, as protectors of nations, as political leaders of the Richelieu type, and in their specific role as prince-bishops of the Empire. (4) The chapters on property and wealth besides an analysis of the income of cardinals include additional contributions on their social background and education, on their household and on the strategic consequences of their testaments. (5) The city of Rome is concerned when cardinals act as administrators of the Papal States or as governors of the vacant see. They also left their mark on their titular churches and on their sumptuous palaces. (6) “Mission” starts with an overview of cardinals in global history concerning in particular the Islam, the religions of Asia, the Jews, and the primal religions. Special chapters concern Eastern Churches, the church of Spanish-America, and, in contrast, the activities of the Propaganda Fide. (7) “Cardinals and literature” presents early modern historiography on early modern cardinals, which first of all consisted in collections of biographies, but also includes treatises on the ideal cardinal and some biographies of saintly cardinals, in addition, cardinals profiled as book collectors and even as founders of libraries. (8) On the other hand, they profiled as patrons of the visual arts and music. After an analysis of their wardrobe, the book demonstrates how their portraits and their tombs left an extensive impact on the scenery of early modern Rome.

With equal balance of gender 31 authors produced 35 chapters. The three editors wrote more than one. According to their institutional affiliation eight contributors originate from Italy, seven from England, five from Germany, four from the USA, two from Scotland and France respectively, and one each from Belgium, the Netherlands and Finland. Considering their names, however, we may assume that at least four of them were no natives of the countries of their universities—an additional demonstration of the international character of this endeavor. Nevertheless, I could discover only one or two theologians on the list, but several historians of art—another remarkable fact. A selection from the long list of contributors is an impossible task and unjust, because they are all equally proven experts, who have already published in the field of their special competence. Extensive notes demonstrate the high level of their learnedness. When for example sometimes evidence might be missing as in the case of Markus Völkel’s book in chapters 16 and 22, then this defect is compensated in the brilliant general bibliography of 70 pages. Nevertheless, the book’s strength is also its...